The most basic Star Wars question...

What are you guys talking about? Lucas said he had the entire story from beginning to end written before he even started filming STAR WARS!................

 

That's the biggest myth that's debunked (in excruciating detail) in The Secret History of Star Wars, with pretty damning evidence.

 

Not to mention...

http://blog.zap2it.com/frominsidethebox/2010/05/lost-gets-a-letter-from-george-lucas.html

 

The Thrawn trilogy is taken to be the unofficial 7-9 stories.
I haven't read them because Vader, Yoda and the Emperor aren't in them so they aren't as interesting to me. Altho they might be there in spiritual form, not sure.

Couldn't tell you why about the disappearing/not disappearing. I never even thought of that until you just brought it up.
Wouldn't surprise me if Lucas just forgot to do it. Or maybe because Vader was evil and they weren't...? I don't know.

Btw, you might wanna read the books 1-3 I've heard that book 3 is a lot better then the third movie.

 

Yeah, I've been told that the novelization of Revenge of the Sith actually came up with more of a reason for Queen Amidala to die after childbirth. In the movie, it's like "wha?" Makes no sense at all. There's a whole bunch of weird, vague stuff in Episode 3...

I'm baffled as to why kids like Episodes 1-3 so much. Maybe it's because there's so much of a "video games" look to the films.

 

They don't have their entire childhoods invested in whether the prequels are good or bad...

 

According to Starwars.com, expanded universe, the Emperor does not truly die:

"To counter the dark side's consumption, Palpatine turned to a bizarre combination of technology and Sith magic. Palpatine used Spaarti cloning cylinders to create a store of younger bodies, and employed an ancient Sith technique to transfer his consciousness into a waiting clone. Thus, Palpatine could avoid death indefinitely -- as long as his supply of clones remained intact. He would change his form again and again, prolonging his life. Palpatine constructed a secret throne-world deep within the galaxy's core, on a shadowy world called Byss. Here, he kept his clones safe, protected by a loyal cadre of Dark Side Adepts

At the Battle of Endor, Palpatine found himself facing death yet again. Betrayed by Vader, Palpatine's body was destroyed aboard the second Death Star. Separated from his clones, Palpatine was forced to survive in the maddening, bodiless existence of the void. Through sheer will he retained his identity, crossing the gulf of space to again take residence in his clone body. He barely survived Darth Vader's treachery. Palpatine remained sequestered at Byss while he rebuilt his strength, and his Empire.

Palpatine's rule was so absolute that his apparent death at Endor fragmented the Empire. With no obvious heir, opportunistic moffs and warlords set out to carve their own private fiefdoms where they could. Years of infighting worked to the advantage of the fledgling New Republic, who proceeded to reclaim three-fourths of the galaxy. One warlord who succeeded where imitators failed was Grand Admiral Thrawn, the only non-human to hold that rank. His cunning tactics and unerring strategies brought the Empire to the brink of victory five years after the Battle of Endor. Only a last minute betrayal spelled his defeat.

Spurred on by Thrawn's victories, the remaining Inner Circle of Imperial warlords staged a devastating attack on Coruscant. Whereas Thrawn sought to take the capital world intact, these Imperials attacked without compunction. Much of Imperial City was laid waste by the fighting, and the New Republic was forced to evacuate. Once on the surface, the Imperials splintered yet again, and skirmishes dragged on in amongst the ruined skyscrapers.

It was then that the resurrected Palpatine struck. Using his dark powers to invoke a Force storm of great magnitude, Palpatine swept Jedi Master Luke Skywalker to Byss. There, he revealed himself to Skywalker, and unveiled the true strength of the dark side. Faced with an immortal enemy, Skywalker did the unthinkable -- in order to defeat the dark side from within, Skywalker knelt before Palpatine, and declared himself his new apprentice. In these dark times, it seemed the Emperor had finally won.

Skywalker was too enmeshed in darkness to successfully rebel against his master. Although he sabotaged some of Palpatine's military ventures -- namely those involving immense war factories called World Devastators -- he still could do not draw himself from the pall of the dark side. It was only his sister, Leia Organa Solo, that gave him the extra strength he needed. With her presence, the two Skywalker twins were able to temporarily repulse Palpatine.

Unabated, the Emperor continued his scourge. Armed with an incredible new superweapon, the Galaxy Gun, Palpatine forced numerous New Republic worlds to capitulate to Imperial rule. Despite his growing Empire, Palpatine was again growing frail. His clones were failing him. He needed new blood. Palpatine targeted Leia's newborn son, Anakin Solo, as the next receptacle for his dark spirit. During an attempt to possess the child, Han Solo shot the ailing Palpatine in the back. Before his soul could enter Anakin's body, Palpatine was intercepted by a newfound Jedi, Empatojayos Brand. Cut off from a host body, Palpatine's essence dissipated, to be consumed by the madness that is the dark side. After so many years of bloodshed, the Emperor was truly dead"

 

Wow, that's cheese.

 

So Palpatine is really Voldemort?

 

So for 98% of the Star Wars viewers, Palpatine died.

For the 2% who are even aware of the "expanded universe", his soul left his body when it was destroyed on the 2nd Death Star, floated across endless light years of space, and managed to find its way back to Byss, where it reunited with one of his clone bodies.

Yet later when he attempted to transfer this same soul in to Anakin Solo's body, he was cut off from entering that body by Jedi Brand. But instead of floating across the universe to inhabit another clone body, this time his spirit just....dissolved.

Inconsistent, but probably something Lucas would do.

 

There's only 6 real movies and Vader, Palpatine, Yoda, C3PO, R2D2, Chewy and Obi Wan (different actors) are in both trilogies. That's a lot of continuity for kids. Plus there's lots of new characters in the prequels that appear in lego sets, action figures, video games, etc. that are for some reason as exciting to them as Boba Fett was to kids 30 years ago.

As for the plot flaws and logic holes in the prequels, they're just accepted without question. It's the same as how my son never asks why Santa discriminates when delivering twice the amount of toys to a couple of friends as my son receives.

When I was a kid I loved Moonraker beacuse it had James Bond, Jaws & outer space. As I got older I decided it was an inferior Bond film, which is how I guess my son will eventually view the SW prequels.

On a side note, we took the kids to Disneyland last week and I was impressed that the Star Tours simulator w/ Paul Ruebens voicing the pilot droid was still pure of any prequel influence. I just read here on wiki that it is closing next month and will be replaced next year with Star Tours II as a 3-D Menace Podracer simulator.

 

SW and ESB producer Gary Kurtz gave a few interviews about his and Lucas' plans for episode VI (plus prequels and eps. 7-9) while they were shooting Empire.

http://uk.movies.ign.com/articles/376/376873p4.html

There's the theory that Lucas changed his plans after Empire because it wasn't comparatively that much of the hit that the original Star Wars was (Airplane! was almost as successful in its initial run) and because Raiders of the Lost Ark changed his approach to storytelling and made him focus on action scenes.

 

Lando in Orlando....

Just to go slightly off topic, these pics are from Disney's Hollywood Studios during last Friday's Star Wars Weekend.

Brian

 

No it wasn't - "Empire" made a ton more money than "Airplane!" ever did. "Empire" didn't sell as many tickets as "Star Wars", but it was still a HUGE hit.

Back then, no one expected sequels to do as well as their predecessors - if they got 2/3rds of the audience, studios were happy. I believe "Empire" did right around 2/3rds of the original film's (original) gross...

 

I'd start with the Star Wars Holiday Special or maybe even the Ewok Adventure.

Seriously, I'd start with Star Wars, Empire, and Jedi, and after that they can move on to the prequels.

 

BoxOfficeMojo shows Empire pulling in $141 million in its first 12 weeks, while Airplane! pulled in $83 million during its total run. A January 1, 1982 list of box office champs had SW #1, Jaws #2, Empire #3 and Airplane! #37.

 

He's been making it all up as he's gone along.
I'll never forget Spielberg talking about the original Frank Darabont script for Indy 4 being the best script he's seen since Jaws and Lucas saw it/read it and said no to it. They made an agreement that both of them had to approve before the story would go forward.
When Entertainment weekly brought this up with Spielberg during press for Indy 4 he didn't even want to talk about it.

Lucas lost his creative mind. He just did. I remember after seeing Indy 4 someone said "that was sci-fi, not archeology, why was it like that?"

I got the secret history of SW and while I haven't read it all yet, the original ideas blow away the ideas that made it to the screen.

One thing I've thought about lately is: what if Lucas fixes Han and Greedo for the SW blu set?
I doubt he will, but can you imagine the reaction if that happened?

 

For younger kids, show them the original versions of the original trilogy.

For teenagers, just show them "Star Wars."

If any questions come up about sequels, prequels, etc., just tell them the real George Lucas died in the car crash with Mark Hamill in 1977. That someone else finished the editing of the first film, and everything since then has been the work of a greedy impostor.

 

Some people have said that episode 1 might be seen after the 5th.
Probably not a good idea.

It's very important (imo) that kids know the truth about Vader being Luke's father, and Luke says "I must know" to Yoda and Yoda tells him right there.

One reason it should be seen that way is, when Lucas was doing the commentary for one of the dvd's, he mentioned that he went to some psychologists and asked them what the reaction of children would be to Vader telling Luke he was his father.
Ya, know, how would the audience -and kids- take that?

They said that most kids would simply deny it being true because it was so unbelievable.
They would not want to believe it. The kids probably wouldn't be able to mentally handle it. Add to that Luke saying "That's not true, that's impossible!"

So that scene in 6 is probably very important for kids to see before the first episode.
Just my 2 cents.

 

I've got to get this book now. So has the Darabont script for Indy 4 leaked? That film as it came out was AWFUL. It makes Temple of Doom look like a masterpiece of cinema.

 

My friend's 7 year old kid was all into Star Wars. He drank the kool-aid (Jar-Jar urine). He thought it was the greatest thing since sliced bread. I had them over at my house and put "Big Trouble In Little China" into the DVD player. Needless to say, the kid has been cured of his infliction. Thank you, John Carpenter.

 

Yes, exactly. The whole thing is over the top, and the relationships between the characters are arbitrary. It's a big shambling mess.

 

can someone actually explain what happens in the last thirty minutes of Indy four???

Raiders of the Lost Ark is the only one of the series that I can still enjoy. It's not a masterpiece, but it's a well made, atmospheric action adventure film.